


and my bright's too slight

by unveils



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Coping, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveils/pseuds/unveils
Summary: “I hurt you.” Jason croaks it, voice heavy but dripping like a waterlogged corpse resurfacing, and he sounds angry. He sounds tired. He sounds like he hates himself so much that Tim can feel it like something still left over in his own chest.





	and my bright's too slight

The first night Jason wakes Tim with a nightmare, it’s a bad one. Jason wakes shaking and screaming and sweating and when Tim touches his shoulder, Jason has a knife in his hand so fast and so efficient that Tim’s first instinct is to break his wrist. 

He doesn’t. Jason slashes wildly and Tim disarms him as gently as he can, getting hit in the process of pinning Jason’s arms and legs until he stops yelling, until he stops struggling.

They make it through the episode, Jason shaking and breathing underneath Tim like he managed to crawl his way back from the grave a second time, winding up curled at the edge of Tim’s bed in the dark like a feral animal, arms wrapped around himself, hair plastered to the pale of his face. 

Tim’s had exactly seventeen ideas, seventeen  _ plans  _ \-- wrong, wrong, you can’t plan for how someone reacts, especially not someone like Jason, he  _ knows  _ that -- about how this might go, but none of them match reality enough to carefully contain a correct reaction, a  _ right  _ one, to fix this, and Jason -- 

“I hurt you.” He croaks it, voice heavy like a waterlogged corpse resurfacing, and he sounds angry. He sounds tired. He sounds like he hates himself so much that Tim can feel it like something still left over in his own chest.

For all of it, Tim’s voice sounds -- irritated. “You didn’t.” Too clipped. He softens himself for the nostalgic feeling of the weight in his chest, but doesn’t try to enter Jason’s space. “Jason, you know that you couldn’t.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Jason lashes out again, pulling himself from the curled state into something larger, something intimidating and entirely Red Hood -- something Tim’s seen before and  _ knows  _ how to react to, because it used to scare him, used to be the thing that haunted his nightmares, but now he  _ knows.  _

Now he knows Jason Todd.

“Don’t be fucking  _ stupid _ , Tim-- Don’t be so fucking -- I already  _ have  _ hurt you, Jesus Christ!” 

Tim allows him to cross the space between them, to let Jason’s fingers meet the scar that strips across Tim’s neck, a reminder for the both of them. They’re rough as they always are but gentle as they can be, even now, like Jason’s struggling to prove the point and keep himself at bay all at once.

“I will again. I will.” Softer. Softer. Softer, and real. No bravado, just the boy in the grave and the waterlogged corpse that couldn’t keep itself down.

If Tim allowed Jason to touch him, Jason allows Tim to move forward, to wrap both arms around him tight enough to bruise, to hold him down until the tears stop coming. 

Jason’s silent until through the shower, through the way Tim’s lips keeps finding his forehead, his shoulder, his cheeks -- through the way Tim keeps saying soft nothings that don’t make sense, that are stupid, cliche, maybe, but true -- 

_ We’ll get through this,  _

And --

_ We always have,  _

Until the sun comes up in the morning, just like it does every day.


End file.
